No Matter What
by DreamergirlJL
Summary: After a Hiraishin gone wrong, Naruto is thrust into the past. Now he must face his inner demons in order to save the past from the one who sent him there. Everything hangs in balance. One mistake, and the world, in the future and in the past, will be obliterated. Along the way, Naruto must answer one question-what will he choose, his deepest desires, or his darkest emotions?
1. Back to the Past

**Hey everyone! I'm back with another story. This is my first attempt at a multi-chaptered fanfiction, so no flames, and please read and review.**

**Disclaimer: I sadly, do not own anything from Naruto. Not for lack of trying though...**

Chapter 1: Back to the Past

"Naruto look out!" screamed a pink haired kunoichi.

Uzumaki Naruto turned, eyes widening almost comically as a bright light enveloped him. Bursts of pure agony ran through his body, it felt like he was being impaled on kunai and shuriken that were dipped in acid. _'I'm going to die.'_ Thought Naruto sadly, as he turned to where the tampered Hiraishin seal was. He smiled forlornly when he saw his three friends desperately trying to fix the seal.

Nara Shikamaru. Konoha's Lazy Genius, top strategist and negotiator, and Naruto's best friend.

Haruno Sakura. Apprentice to Senju Tsunade, Konoha's Deadly Beauty, and Naruto's childhood crush.

Hatake Kakashi. Naruto's sensei, Sharingan-no-Kakashi, a man listed in the top slot in bingo books all around the Elemental Nations. A man Naruto thought of as his older brother.

"Well looks like this is it. It was a pleasure fighting with you.

Shikamaru desperately shook his head. "No Naruto! W-we'll find a way. We gotta find a way..." Shikamaru tried in vain to hold back the tears that were threatening to fall.

"Do me a favour and don't let my Ichiraku coupons go to waste. Nothing worse than wasting free ramen,-ttebayo!" said Naruto with a chuckle.

And with that, Uzumaki Naruto, the dearly loved Rokudaime Hokage of Konoha, vanished.

'_Goodbye...Naruto-kun.'_, thought Kakashi, a single tear running down his face.

"Minato-sensei! I can see Konoha's gates!" yelled an excited Uchiha Obito.

"Slow down loser. The only way you can see it because of your Sharingan. We are still two hours away." said a masked teen.

"Don't call me a loser you asshole!" screamed Obito, launching himself at Kakashi.

The third Genin, and the only female in the group, Nohara Rin, stepped between the two shinobi. "BOYS! ENOUGH!" She smacked them both on the back of the head, causing the two boys to stumble forward a bit.

"Owww, Rin-chan! What was that for?!" whined Obito. "Kakashi-teme started it!"

Seeing that Rin was about to explode, the Genin teams Jounin sensei, Namikaze Minato stepped in.

"Now, now children, behave. We're almost home." He said cheerfully, looking completely unconcerned that his Genin were about to kill each other. "If you don't stop fighting then I will assign you D-ranks until the Chunin exams." He added, effectively shutting all three teenagers up.

"Hmph." snorted Obito, crossing his arms and looking away.

The team continued on in a silence that was occasionally broken by snippets of conversation between the three Jounin as they talked about the mission.

The Rouran mission squad consisted of Namikaze Minato's Genin team – Uchiha Obito, Nohara Rin, and Hatake Kakashi- and two other Jonin, Nara Shikaku and Akimichi Chouza.

Suddenly, Kakashi stopped, peering into the forest to their right with a frown. Minato noticed, and asked "Kakashi? What's up?"

Everyone stopped and looked at the silver haired teen. Obito was about to tease him, but noticing the 'I'm-dead-serious-don't-fuck-with-me-right-now-or- I-will-seriously-injure-you' look on Kakashi's face, he grew serious himself.

"I can smell someone injured out there." said Kakashi. "There's a lot of blood. He or she was probably in a fight, and the people this person was fighting are probably still around."

"Well let's help them then, and if anybody attacks, we'll put up one hell of a fight!" yelled Obito, before heading off into the forest.

"Baka! Wait for Kakashi-kun to show us where to go!" shouted Rin exasperatedly before heading after them.

"Tch, troublesome kids." muttered Shikaku. Chouza and Minato both sighed at their fellow shinobi's behaviour.

Kakashi led the group to a clearing. The light tinkling of a fast moving stream was broken by the heavy gasping of the man that lay unconscious in the middle of the clearing.

The man was clearly a shinobi, with a tall, lean body that most shinobi could only dream of. He was around 6'2, with bright blonde - yellow, really - hair, and an angular face with high cheekbones. The only markings he had on his face were three whisker-like markings in each cheek. He wore loose black pants tucked into steel toed combat boots. He wore a form fitting black shirt on top of a standard steel mesh shirt. On top of his combat clothes, he wore a white robe with an orange flame pattern along the bottom. Normally these clothes would have looked magnificent, but now they were tattered and frayed, with large gashes in the cloth that came from multiple sharp weapons. Most of his body was covered in blood, so much in fact, that it seemed like a miracle to the other shinobi that he was even alive.

"Oh Kami!" gasped Rin "We need to get him to Konoha!"

She moved forward to use some of her medical jutsu. She was still in training , so ishe wasn't sure how much good she would really do. Before she could move more than a couple steps, Kakashi stopped her.

"Wait. We need to check if he's an enemy."

"He isn't." said Obito. "Look, he has a Leaf headband."

Minato walked up to the blonde ninja. He appeared to be around 20, a year younger than Minato himself. Shifting his clothes, he gasped when he saw all of the ninja's injuries were healed. "What the hell?" he murmured in wonder.

"It appears he has advanced healing abilities, probably from a bloodline or something. We are definitely going to have to bring him back to Konoha. Tch, troublesome." muttered Shikaku.

"Oh don't be such a lazyass." said Chouza, cheerfully whacking the Nara on the back. "Besides, he looks too skinny." He added.

Shikaku snorted. "Yeah just because he isn't big and beefy. I swear you're like my grandmother. Always trying to stuff people with food."

"Hey! I resent that! I'm not old!" laughed Chouza.

Minato, Obito, and Rin all tried in vain to hold back their laughter. Even Kakashi cracked a small smile at the older ninja's antics, before choking back his laughter and saying, "Um guys? Can we focus on the half dead ninja here?"

"Not exactly half dead kid. More like wondering how the freaking hell I'm still alive. And where am I?"

They all turned to see the mysterious ninja slowly sitting up and looking around, blinking owlishly.

"You're almost two hours away from Konoha." said Minato.

The shinobi turned and looked at the Namikaze for the first time, and jerked backwards with a gasp, and then a pained groan at jostling his sore body.

"W-what the-...y-you're the-...Holy s-shit..." stuttered the younger blonde.

Eyebrows rose as everyone stared at the speechless blonde.

"Oh great, _another_ Minato-sensei fanboy." mumbled Obito. Rin promptly elbowed him in the ribs.

The blonde ninja looked around, first at Shikaku and Chouza, then at Team Minato. His eyes widened even more when he saw Kakashi.

'_Wow. Kakashi-sensei sure was a shrimp...'_ thought Naruto dazedly.

"Hey-do you have any injuries we haven't seen?" asked Rin. She was worried because the man was too pale for his own good and he looked like he was going to faint.

Ignoring the kunoichi's question, he asked "Who's the Hokage?"

"Why?" asked Minato suspiciously. He was starting to think the blonde shinobi was a bit crazy, or suffering from some form of a severe stress disorder. Who didn't know who the five Kage were? And he had a Leaf headband tied around his forehead. '_Maybe he stole it...but why?'_

"Just answer the question!" yelled the blonde man. "Please?" he asked, a hint of desperation worming its way into his voice.

"The Sandaime Hokage is currently in power." answered Shikaku slowly.

"For how long?"

"15 years." said Kakashi.

"So then..." the blonde man looked up at them with narrowed eyes."This is 20 years ago..."

Getting more and more confused at the blonde mans mumblings, Minato asked, "Alright can you please explain why you look like you were dragged through the seven levels of hell? And why are you muttering about this being 20 years ago?" He hadn't meant to sound so annoyed, but they had just come back from one of their toughest missions yet and he was _just so damn __**tired**_!

So the blonde spent the next ten minutes explaining how he was from the future, and how he had been fighting a powerful opponent when he attempted to use a Hiraishin. At this Minato's eyes had gone wide. _'He know the Hiraishin?! But very few people have the body type for space/time jutsu's like this. And when they do share body types they're usual...ly...they're usually...family. Who ARE you?'_ Tuning back into the blonde's story, he heard the man say that the most probable reason he was even in their time was because the Hiraishin seal had been tampered at the last second by the enemy. The Rouran mission squad sat in shock for a few minutes, trying to analyze everything they heard.

Obito, wanting to break the heavy silence asked, "Sooooo weird ninja from the future" here he dodged Rin's elbow to the ribs, "what's your name?"

The blonde chuckled a bit nervously. "Hehe, sorry I probably should've introduced myself. My name is Uzumaki Naruto."

**Thank you for reading! Again this is my first attempt at any kind of multi-chaptered fic so please review. Any feedback or suggestions will be much appreciated. :-D**

**I will make a point of putting up a new chapter every Friday.**

**Toodles!**


	2. Introductions

**Hello everyone! I am so so sooo sorry for not updating for a while. Things have been hectic at home, I had to go to the hospital a few days ago so I haven't been able to write. But, today I present Chapter 2 of No Matter What.**

**Enjoy!**

"Uzumaki...Naruto?" repeated a wide-eyed Minato.

Naruto chuckled nervously, and with a small wave said "Hi Dad..."

Everyone looked at Naruto, then at Minato, and then looked at Naruto before mentally smacking themselves for not noticing the similarities between the two blondes.

'So troublesome...' thought the lazy Nara. Out loud he said, "If Minato is your father, and going by your last name, your mother must be Uzumaki Kushina then, correct?"

"Hai" replied Naruto.

'_So this explains the Hiraishin and the freakishly large chakra reserves I sense he has. But I can't sense how much chakra he has, only that he has a vast amount of it...this has never happened before. Not even the Third's chakra levels are this high. How can Naruto, a kid who looks no older than 20, beat Lord Hokage, who became famous because of his massive chakra reserves?'_

Chouza noticed Shikaku was deep in thought but said nothing. When his friend stopped slouching and looked as if he was actually concentrating instead of wearing his usual lazy expression, you never, never, _ever_, interrupt Shikaku's thought process, because this expression was reserved for 'I'm-thinking-about-a-way-around-a-massive-problem -for-Konoha' situations. Besides, the last time Chouza interrupted him, his family jewels were crushed via Shikaku's Shadow Manipulation.

Minato walked closer to Naruto, and sat down in front of him, and closely examined his face, clearly checking if there were any genjutsu or henge's on the man. The group was silent as the two blonde's looked at each other. Kakashi was looking at Naruto and noticed that while his face was happy, a slight smile on his lips, a strange emotion lingered in the depths of Naruto's cerulean blue eyes.

'_It's like...he's wearing a mask...like it's..."_ he searched for the proper word, _'Painful...to see sensei. But why-oh. Seeing Minato-sensei would be painful if Minato-sensei died in the future. And Uzumaki-san would probably have been young when it happened...he's like me...who am I kidding? He probably grew up loved and coddled and spoiled by the village.'_ Kakashi felt ashamed of his last thought. How did he know what Naruto had gone through, how he grew up? He shouldn't judge. Appearances were deceiving, especially in the ninja world.

While Kakashi had been thinking, Obito and Rin had also figured that Minato-sensei had died during Naruto's childhood.

'_Poor Naruto-san...growing up without a father must have been tough...'_

'_So he grew up without a father...WOW! He grew up without Minato-sensei and he still became an awesome looking ninja! I gotta get him to teach me a new jutsu!'_

A sudden movement drew everyone's attention back to the two blonde's. Minato had shifted into a kneeling position, and was looking at Naruto hesitantly.

"Are you...really my son?" asked Minato.

Naruto nodded mutely, and seconds later Minato had enveloped him in a hug, tightly holding onto Naruto.

A look of shock was clear on Naruto's face before he smiled and hugged his father back, closing his eyes and burying his face in Minato's shoulder. A light cough broke them apart, faces burning with embarrassment.

With a slight smirk on his face, Shikaku said, "This is touching and all, but we should head back to Konoha and tell Hokage-sama about this whole troublesome mess."

Minato smiled sheepishly."Hehehe, hai...There is another problem though. How the hell are we going to explain this to the council?"

Shikaku groaned, and looked up to the sky as if asking the heavens to save him. "We're gonna have to tell the council..."

"Aren't your parents on the council though?" asked Minato, looking at Chouza and Shikaku.

"Hai but it isn't the Ninja Council I'm worried about. It's the" here Chouza paused, looking like he had swallowed a lemon, "- the Civilian Council that I'm worried about. At the mention of the civilian council, every single ninja shuddered in repressed horror. Those civilians were the worst of Konoha, nightmare inducing people hidden under a sickly sweet facade of good hardworking people. All ninja, even the Hokage hated this part of the council. The Hokage had tried several times to disband the civilian council, but each time they had erased any evidence of wrongdoing, therefore leaving the Hokage without any reasons for termination of the civilian council.

Shaking themselves from thoughts about the council, the group of ninja set of to Konoha.

Suddenly, Rin said, "Ano, shouldn't we introduce ourselves to Naruto-san?"

Everyone blinked, before realising that Naruto was the only person who said his name.

The black haired genin beside Naruto grinned and gave him a thumb up. "I'm Uchiha Obito. Nice to meet you!"

"Hatake Kakashi."

"Nohara Rin, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Well, you already know me. Namikaze Minato."

"Nara Shikaku"

"Akimichi Chouza"

Naruto nodded at each introduction, smiling when Obito introduced himself.

When they neared Konoha's gates, Chouza spoke up. "Since only Hokage-sama and the council will know of your true identity, why don't we introduce you as Minato's long lost twin brother, separated by war?"

Shikaku thought about it, and mutteres, "This might actually work...Naruto-san looks like a replica of Minato, and they're around the same age. But it won't fool the Ninja Council, and it definitely won't faze my old man. They're too smart to fall for something like this. So, don't let slip any information until the Civilian Council is out of the room, got it?"

Everyone nodded, eyes filled with worry, and hearts filled with apprehension. As they resumed their run to Konoha, no one noticed the black shadow following them, seeming almost wraith-like and made of smoke, disappearing when any of the ninja turned around. The figure kept close to the group, invisible eyes locked onto Uzumaki Naruto.

'_The one...'_


End file.
